Interview: Bob Young After Red Hat

Bob Young is, arguably, one of the most influential figures in the development of Linux and open source. By co-founding Red Hat with Mark Ewing in 1993, Young helped turn Linux into a household name (although himself uses Mac OS X). After being involved with Red Hat for more than 12 years, Young recently stepped down from Red Hat’s board of directors. NewsForge caught up with him to see what his plans are, and what his thoughts are on Red Hat and the future of open source.

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What about Linux on the desktop? If Young’s habits are any indication, it will be a while. Young’s desktop of choice is Apple’s Mac OS X. “I could not bring myself to go to Windows, of course. And one of the little-known facts — ’cause, you know, I’m a skinny guy who wears glasses, everyone assumes that I’m an engineer by training — I’m an old typewriter salesman by training. So maintaining my own Linux desktop was just something that I didn’t have the training to do.”.

What exactly does being an engineer by training have to do with it? Last time I checked, Linux never made me solve an equation using an interval halveing iteration. The only thing using Linux on the desktop requires is a bit of planning. Buy a computer that has parts you know will work with Linux (surprisingly, most Dell’s are excellent in this regard, as they use mostly Intel stuff and Intel is good about sharing their specs), and a Linux machine is easily as trouble-free as an OS X one.

He’s not the first redhat guy to point out that linux on the desktop is going nowhere fast. OSX going intel will only further push this point home. Scream choice all you want, but not having a standard linux desktop has hurt linux. Linux works well as a server.

Bob Young is, arguably, one of the most influential figures for the creation of Red Hat and what it is today.

He whas a great salesman for the Red Hat branding , I am sure that some people at Red Hat will miss him but beside that he is the single person I can say that as put the most effort into sabotaging the GNU/Linux desktop for the GNU/Linux community.

Year after Year as a CEO he as called the GNU/Linux desktop not ready ( Red Hat solution never where ), As a chairman he whas less in the projectors but whas still one who where not believeing in the readiness of the GNU/Linux desktop.

Some will think and say in a demeaning way that the rodent are starting to quit the ship , but I whont go there.

I will remeber people that a company who whas given 3.5 Billion in IPO who is only pulling 150 million in profit even do those profit are already acquired by the selling of debentures. Is not something I call a good investment and something who as a good ROI ( return on investment ).

My take whas that Red Hat whas at the right place at the right time with the right salesman , too bad Bancilhon , Shuttleworth and even Robertson where not there in those days , I am sure we would be further along then we are right now if they had been.

2005-11-09 11:44 am

Not to sound like a troll, i’ll probably be modded down anyway, that’s ok, as long as you see it…

man

you have a problem with h and w

was, were and won’t don’t have h

2005-11-09 3:08 pm

“Year after Year as a CEO he as called the GNU/Linux desktop not ready ( Red Hat solution never where ), As a chairman he whas less in the projectors but whas still one who where not believeing in the readiness of the GNU/Linux desktop.”

RedHat’s position has been that Linux isn’t ready for the “Home Desktop” and as long as “Home Desktop” apps are installed like this

Year after Year as a CEO he as called the GNU/Linux desktop not ready ( Red Hat solution never where ), As a chairman he whas less in the projectors but whas still one who where not believeing in the readiness of the GNU/Linux desktop.

If you ask me, the problem has been the complete opposite. All zealots saying it is ready has made many of the early adaptors try it (once or several times) only to see it is all but ready. Therefor, many of us never even consider Linux no matter what gets written about it.

Don’t give me that rant about “it’s ready for me”… it’s not ready for business desktops in general because it lacks apps, it lacks ease of use and it lacks logic. The lack of standards (how about 30 ways to update things) is a major issue…

I’d love to get away from Windows on the desktop, but at the moment, the only real option is OSX, sorry, but that’s a reality. Linux? Well I might check in 5 years again…

2005-11-09 8:30 am

I’ve been using (Debian) Linux on my desktop for ~3 years, at work, not just at home. Granted, my job is Internet related so Linux is right at home in my field.

But it’s getting closer each day – the open sources alternatives are getting better, and some are just superior (I think TB is way better dan OE).

One thing Microsoft still does much better: integration and consistancy. They don’t have >50 desktop environments. Luckely, this is getting slightly better for us, but much remains to be done. I believe the Simple-KDE approach should be able to convert the masses.

Sure, it’s all specialised stuff, but that’s what some people with unrational hatred towards specific corporation need to realise: applications are often more important than the OS itself. I believe the average Joe is more pragmatic than ideologic and will use anything that can help him in accomplishing his job. Support for academia software is getting quite good (MATLAB, Mathematica, Maple; in my case, even Altera and Xilinx are starting to provide Linux development tools for their FPGAs) but many quality applications are still missing, mostly in engineering.

Not everybody is using their computer for mails and chatting. I’m quite content with my Linux/FreeBSD servers but I’m using the best tool for the job and for my workstation usage, it’s not one of them…

Note : you see the little “reply” button it serve for replying so you dont loose track of a dicsussion.

“If you ask me”

No , I whas just making an observation about Bob Yougn lifetime achievement at Red Hat I felt like mentionning.

“the problem has been the complete opposite.”

If you see people that try thing as a problem , then you dont know what your talking about , evolution is only stopped by those who lack vision or whant.

“All zealots”

You see that little words it identify you as a moron , I havent seen any GNU/Linux advocate or and GNU/Linux desktop advocate putting a Gun to anyone head or starting to shoot people in order to push there idea.

“saying it is ready … to see it is all but ready. ”

They all tried Red Hat …

“Therefor, many of us never even consider Linux no matter what gets written about it. ”

Seriously why would I care about someone who buy Dell /Apple turnkey , and seriously consider them to be able to install GNU/Linux and install it when they dont even do that for Mac OS X/Windows , when all of the hardware I would make into turnkey I cant get the companie to try something else beside Red Hat , wich is blocking everyone else from making it better ?

“Don’t give me that rant about “it’s ready for me”… ”

I am not going to even sugest you can use GNU/Linux or should discuss it at all.

“t’s not ready for business desktops in general because it lacks apps”

No … But people have to be able to change to superior applications.

“it lacks ease of use”

No …

“and it lacks logic.”

No …

” The lack of standards ”

LSB of wich Red Hat whas almost never certified for …

“(how about 30 ways to update things) is a major issue… ”

Why would 30 ways to update thing be a problem ? It work , its how the developper choose to update there OS or program nobody is forcing you to use any method you dont like …

Don’t give me that rant about “it’s ready for me”… it’s not ready for business desktops in general because it lacks apps

The question is, does it lack the apps people use? Most desktops do nothing but run Office all day. Very many businesses could switch to Linux + OpenOffice and not even know it. Indeed, many government desktops have switched. A government desktop is really no different from an office desktop (they are both for office workers), but the reason you’ve seen very significant adoption on the latter side is that government’s are in a position to make their own standards, rendering applications like OpenOffice feasible.

it lacks ease of use

Did you try Linux with a sysadmin? Remember, what you experience at home will be quite different from what somebody in an office (even the smallest offices usually have a sysadmin) will experience. The actual GUI of Linux is hardly difficult to use, and indeed in the case of GNOME, is simpler to use than Windows.

and it lacks logic.

Logic is irrelevent except to geeks who care what’s under the hood. To a user, an Ubuntu desktop looks almost exactly the same as a Windows one (there are icons here and there, a “start menu”, etc). Exactly what is the missing “logic”.

The lack of standards (how about 30 ways to update things) is a major issue…

Again, irrelevent in an office environment where you have a planned deployment. Linux supports all of the public standards for interoperation. The fact that different distributions differ is irrelevent, because one deployment will only use a single distribution.

2005-11-09 7:57 am

You know, if they had edited out all of the “you know”s from the article, they could have stripped it down to three pages instead of four. You know?

😛

2005-11-09 10:15 am

One thing Microsoft still does much better: integration and consistancy. They don’t have >50 desktop environments. Luckely, this is getting slightly better for us, but much remains to be done. I believe the Simple-KDE approach should be able to convert the masses.

MS? Consistency? Please, WMP and MSN look completely different to the rest of the apps, as do Outlook.

And sure, many distros are shipping both Gnome and KDE, but this is changing. And if we’re talking business, Red Hat, SuSE and NDL (Novell Desktop Linux) are all either Gnome-based, or soon to be.

Of course MS is superior in several areas. but not in this one.

2005-11-09 11:16 am

Well linux on desktop will not happen for me at least: (I have ~2 years experience with linux)

Toolkits feel laggy for me , if someoned used win95/beos, he will understand in what way. Then memory usage: some basic player like winamp 2.95 uses ~3mb on windows , beep-media-player/xmms on linux something around 10 or more (all rss sizes). bittornado same torrent , lots of files, on windows ~30mb , on linux ~100mb, ok I admit wxPython is bloated and on windows python uses native gui. So are many desktop applications which feel bloated and amateurish.

Take mplayer: no subtitle support, if u go forward /backward in the video , if it reaches the end, it stops and you can’t rewind and have to press play again. When you switch to fullscreeen , sometimes the bar below won’t work. Sometimes the skin gets blue , sometimes it just freezes and you have to killall it from console. Take any other media player on linux and compare it to media player classic on windows in terms of usability and functionality. Note the times when you click on the button and get feedback in the video window. Measure the time from double clicking on the video file and the time it starts playing.

Then this mounting philosophy which i don’t understand so you have to unmount the drive before taking cd out. Why? cd’s/dvds are read only and it only should lock them when you burn something on them. If i press a button on cd i know that i want my cd out and a program which need it can go to hell , i am the the master of this pc and i decide when to eject the cd and when not. This all freaks me out. Thankfully i found NO_DOOR_LOCKING hack in ide-cdrom.c but this shouldn’t be that way.

Also you cant force unmount another filesystem if somethign wrong happend and it doesn’t function the normal way. Then you cant limit a process to a certain cpu usage to prevent some processes from bogging down the sysem. There are just some issues that came in mind , there are tons more that i wont talk about because everyone heard them too many times like the consistency and interface. I’d say it ain’t pretty but it works. It’s just for me as a desktop user and a developer everything feels like a hack. Some programs where hacked to be used with other programs, some were hacked atop of others. Everything hacked and nothing thought to the end. Noone acutally sat down and thouhght how people use gui, noone observed how people use computers how people organize their information. Wich colors/combinations/contrast is more relaxing for the eyes. Noone thought about how to get out of users way. I admit the kernel is probably the state of the art , so are gnu toolls, but everything above is just a mess.

Desktop Linux will probably only blossom when/if we move away from stand-alone PCs to client/server using the internet as the link

Gecko is getting Python bindings. I wonder if anybody has ever explored that opportunity.

2005-11-09 1:14 pm

I agree that Linux is not ready for the majority of desktops. It’s ready for mine and that’s what matters. I really don’t care what other people run at home and I don’t sell a desktop distro. I don’t get why people need “spread Linux”.

2005-11-09 1:25 pm

One of the best CEOs for interviews. Very smart, sees the big picture, not pretentious, not hard sell or dogmatic, has a sense of humor without being constantly in put-down mode.

I especially liked his observation about the generation of legislators making a difference. The non-computer literate generation is retiring, and the digital/internet generation is taking their place. The result should be some different policy decisions.

I’ve used Linux for atleast 7 years and the same debate has gone on since then. People always have some new app that is about to come out that will make linux ready. oh gnome 2.0, kde 3, new gimp! Look It’s not ready. Windows is a better OS for people plain and simple. Don’t argue the point its not up for debate. The proof is in who buys what.

Your kid comes home with a new game Joe let him borrow, dad can i get on the PC to play this new game? Nope we can’t play that we use Linux.

Boss: “how come when you send me Office documents they have lines though them and look uneven?” “cause boss you’re a l4m3r and don’t have OO its free!”

Hey accept this voice on MSN.. sorry I can’t i use linux. Trust me its the lil things like this that piss off the everyday users. Windows apps have these cool features you’re not privy to but everyone else on the planet is.

Many Many Many incompatible multimedia sites. This is a real back breaker for ppl i’ve tried to convert. When sites they look at everyday cant stream content that does it for em, its not worth the trouble.

I went though a super geek phase, thats why I bothered with linux. Now that I’m doing other things with my time I still know linux and can use it but am just bored of the hassles myself.

2005-11-09 4:15 pm

Ok, here’s the deal. Linux is NOT ready for widespread desktop use. Why? Well, for basic everyday consumer mp3 listening, typing, email, it’s fine. That is probably why Linspire and Mandrake have done so well. But, the money is in business adoption, not consumer adoption. A business will spend MILLIONS on technology. Small business spend thousands. Neither is a prime candidate for Linux adoption as it stands now. Why? ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE!!! Quickbooks is the de-facto standard in small business accounting. Now, can you run Quickbooks in Linux? Well, sortof. You can use crossover office, but that costs money. If it costs money then it’s not exactly cheaper than Windows is it? So, if it’s not cheaper than windows it might be more stable than Windows, so it does have that. But, then again, so is OSX. Which is easier for most users to use? OS X wins that hands down. If there was good accounting software out there in the open source realm, then Linux would have a shot. OR, if Quickbooks had a Linux version, then Linux would be in a good place. However, until the ubergeeks become business geeks and decide to write some rocking accounting software in the same way that they write KDE, Gnome, Firefox, Gaim, etc… then Linux will be nothing more than a blip on the radar for consumers and a server operating system for most businesses.

And, as a side note. People who buy computers don’t give a damn if the source code is available for all of their programs. 99.9% of users will never even look at the code to any program on their machine. Also, as a computer programmer myself I can say that for a fact as a Linux user, I never once had a problem that I decided to crack open the code of the program and fix. That’s not how users work. If a program breaks, then the user says a few swear words and curses whoever wrote the program. Then, they call tech support. Linux has no tech support. If you ask the nerds on most forums, they call you dumb and they usually shout USE GOOGLE or RTFM!

And, as a second side note, Linux will never take over the world if people don’t start paying for the software. Novell is firing people because they don’t have the cash for them to work on projects that don’t make money. Cedega, one of the coolest pieces of software on Linux costs money and they still give back to the Wine project. YET, numerous Linux users would never think to pay $15 for a piece of software. They’d rather have to try and hack the bejezus out of Wine to save a few bux. How sad is that? $15 isn’t even enough to take a girl out to a movie most places anymore.

2005-11-09 5:53 pm

*WHAT!!??*

most of us dont/wont pay for software in private use, as most of private windows user.. but opensource os User do it legally (the majority on osnews!)

you r mixing scheisse en masse!

>>Linux is NOT ready for widespread desktop use

>>If there was good accounting software out there in the open source realm, then Linux would have a shot.

>> If it costs money then it’s not exactly cheaper than Windows is it?

>>Linux has no tech support.

>>And, as a second side note, Linux will never take over the world if people don’t start paying for the software

crazy stuff.. just read it again and think about those lines.. did u really mean that?

So u needed an accounting software.. and tried to install one, but didnt succeed? that is no issue about linux-desktop in general..

depends on what u need, if not known already, try it out.. for installation you dont need to ask guuegl or to read teh friendly manuel just visit the page..

g*

me

## didnt thought german-speaking ppl could be so stupid..

2005-11-09 6:59 pm

Linux success and failure is all dependent on rich java based applications delivered via the web. Windows and 3rd party apps are just too feature rich and too embedded for Linux to ever compete effectively on this legacy front. How will Linux ever offer an alternative to these application: Outlook/Exchange, Word, Excel, Access, MSNMessenger, Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, DreamWeaver, PowerDVD, Nero, Active Directory, SQL Server, Quickbooks, and so on?

The truth is that Linux does scale far better than Windows. But it is also just too complex for small environments. So Linux needs to take advantage of its scalibility while minimizing its complexity. For example, who wants to configure a Kerberos Server, integrate it with LDAP, and Postfix/mySQL and then maintain this… for an office of 30 users? But imagine if someone else has done this already and is managing 10,000 small companies. Now it becomes feasible and even cheaper for companies. Linux needs to switch the paradigm and make itself cheaper than Windows. Imagine the cost benefits a small company of 100 people can achieve if rather than deploying Windows, Exchange, SQL Server, and Quickbooks, they choose to get a scalable hosted solution with Outlook type functionality and a fully managed enterprise class ERP for accounting.